The Best of Rome - and it's in Turkey, of course!

From our lakeside retreat in Eğirdir, we headed west via the city of Denizli to the town of Pamukkale. I’ve blogged about Pamukkale before when I visited with my friend Jon back in May, so I’m not going to spend a ton of time talking about the repeat in experiences here. We walked up the same calcite travertines as before, but this time it was much busier. It had really been quite quiet, relatively, when Jon and I had been here. Now it was packed with tourists, which was actually kind of hilarious because many of them were doing embarrassing and silly things. Slavic women in bikinis posed in an attempt to be sensual, and a bunch of olderish women sat in the water smearing themselves with clay. We had a LOT of fun people-watching on the travertines.

A reminder of how pretty Pamukkale is.

Foam or soap or cotton candy or cotton or calcite or something.

Jess in a travertine pool.

Our day in Pamukkale was without a doubt the hottest day of our stay in Turkey. The temperature was in the high 30s, the sun was incredibly intense, and there was very little shade on the travertines or up in the ruined city of Hierapolis up the hill from the travertines. For this reason, we had to move rather slowly, and take frequent breaks in the hot sun, but we began an exploration of the ruins.

Jess atop the ruins of a church - a great thing about Turkey is you can clamber around on things no problem. In Europe there'd be signs and fences everywhere.

Since this was my second time visiting Hierapolis, I had a sense of the things I hadn’t properly seen the last time, and made a point of directing us to them. We visited the Temple of Apollo, which I think may be one of the coolest parts of the ruined city. The remains of the temple are themselves quite well preserved and very beautiful, but the most fascinating part is that the temple still has a plutonium. In ancient times, the Hierapolis Temple of Apollo was famous for having an oracle, similar to the famous Oracle at Delphi. In the Temple, poisonous gases rose from Pluto, the Underworld, from the plutonium, and killed almost instantly any animals that were brought there as a sacrifice. The priestesses of the oracle had allegedly learned a breathing technique that allowed them alone to stay within the plutonium without being killed by the gas. Today, you can still hear the gas bubbling up through water in a spring below the temple. It was kind of chilling to hear that bubbling sound, and while I doubt there was any risk (wouldn’t there be a warning sign??), I admit I tried not to breathe too deeply.

Ruins (!!!). In the background, on the left, is the Temple of Apollo.

Jess listening at the bubbling gases at the Plutonium.

The Plutonium.

The sun and the heat really got to us. You know those days when it’s just so hot that it’s exhausting to move at all? This was one of those days. Exploring too much more of the ruined city seemed like an impossible task, and we took refuge under an olive tree. Jess felt like she couldn’t move any more. But there was one thing here in Hierapolis that I really still wanted to see – the Martyrium of St. Philip the Apostle. Located up a hill from the main city of Hierapolis itself, the Martyrium is apparently the place where the apostle St. Philip was martyred and buried. A cathedral was built at this location, and the ruins remain there today.

Jess trying desperately to find shade.

I left Jess under the olive tree and headed up the path to the Martyridom. There was no one else on the paths, nor up at the Martyrium when I arrived. Before it was abandoned and ruined, the Martyrium was an important pilgrimage site. There was a wooden bridge, restored, crossing a now nearly-dry river, which was defendable by a tower which is now barely a ruin. Then there is a steep and long flight of steps up to a church and to the tomb. I felt like a pilgrim myself, coming up those steps, especially in that intense heat. At the top, there was a fountain for the pilgrims (unfortunately for me, long abandoned), and beside that the ruins of the church, with the tomb in it. Alone in the quiet, it was eerie to look into the tomb, and I jumped rather high when I heard a lizard run across the ground behind me. There were a lot of little lizards up there, and they kept startling me, but I do like them.

The path (deserted, as you can see, up to the Martyrium. Poppies on the path.

The flight of steps up to the church, tomb, and Martyrium.

Ruins of the church, with the tomb just off to my left.

The tomb of the Apostle St. Philip.

The fountain for pilgrims at the top of the staircase.

From the tomb, there was another steep flight of stairs up to the Martyridom. The Martyridom was a truly beautiful ruin. It was almost eerie, with no one else around, and the afternoon sun casting long shadows. There were arches forming a circle around the central, spacious central area. I walked under these arches, through the eight different chapels of the Martyridom. There were symbols carved above each of the arches – some were simple crosses, others were more complex symbols I didn’t recognize. The peacefulness was incredible.

Looking into the Martyrium.

An arch of the Martyrium. Note the cross carved above.

You can see here the circle of arches all around the Martyrium.

Another arch, another interesting (and different) carving above.

One of the chapels of the Martyium.

The Martyrium from a little bit further up the hill.

Returning from the Martyrium. I really love poppies (they are one of my favourite flowers), and there were just so many!

Finally, I headed back down from the Martyrium and back to meet up with Jess. We took the travertines back down to the town (more people being ridiculous), and relaxed away our evening out of the still-intense sun.

The next day, we left Pamukkale rather early, with a direct bus to Selçuk. It’s a small city, really only used as a base for exploring the nearby Ephesus ruins. But I think it’s a bit of a shame that we didn’t see more of city – there seemed to be some cool sights, and the vibe was relaxed and authentic. Instead, all we saw were the few streets behind the bus station, where we ate lunch and stocked up on snacks. It was kind of fun, though, since it was one of the first places since we started out from Ankara that I could really practice my Turkish; the waiters didn’t speak English even if I wanted them to.

After our brief stay there in Selçuk, we got on a dolmuş to the ruins of Ephesus, known in Turkey simply as Efes (also a brand of Turkish beer – many weekend nights in Ankara featured this cheapey). Ephesus holds the best preserved Roman ruins in the world (hence the name of this blog post), making it a seriously cool place to visit for history enthusiasts like me. Legend says that Ephesus was founded back in the 10th century BCE as an Ionian city. At the time, it was on the Mediterranean coast, and it grew to become one of the most richest and important cities in the Roman Empire, and the capital of Roman Asia Minor. Ephesus was famous for its cult worship of the goddess Artemis. The Temple of Artemis in the city - a rebuild financed by Alexander the Great - was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. As an important hub, the city also attracted early Christians, such as (allegedly) St. John, St. Paul, and the Virgin Mary.

Since Ephesus was mostly just going around looking at old things, I’m going to just let the pictures and their captions do most of the talking.

Starting from the Lower Gate of Ephesus, we walked up a wooded path and emerged near the Great Theatre.

Three stories of seating in the Great Theatre, able to sit 25 000 people (about a tenth of the population of Ephesus at its zenith)

The Great Theatre. This place is about 1900 years old.

Looking down from partway up the Great Theatre. It was too hot to go all the way up to the very top.

Corridor in the Great Theatre, through which actors could enter the stage.

An arch!

Looking across the Agora.

Walking down Marble Street, once the third-largest street in Ephesus, from the Great Theatre. The Agora on our right.

Ruins!

Along the left side of Marble Street.

The Library of Celsus, built in the year 114 C.E., in the honour of Celsus Polemaeanus, a Roman governor of Asia Minor.

The Library of Celsus. I think it was my favourite sight at Ephesus - such a beautiful facade!

Arches leading from the Library into the Agora.

The Library of Celsus. I think the statue is of the Greek Virtue, Episteme (Knowledge).

Look at the detail! And the lighting of this picture gives a better sense of the yellowish colour of the library.

Latin!

The back of the facade in the Library of Celsus - much less exciting than the outside.

What's left of the interior of the Library of Celsus.

Greek!

One edge of the Agora.

In the Agora, big marble carvings which showed what each seller was selling - for example, someone with that middle carving would be selling wine. This allowed customers to see from afar which stalls had what they were looking for.

The Agora.

The remains of the Ephesus brothel.

Kitty, hanging out in the shade of the brothel ruins.

Toilet seats of the public latrines.

Jess being unimpressed when I told her that NO, she shouldn't cross the guardrail to get a picture on the latrine seats.

The Temple of Hadrian. That arch uses NO cement, and NO mortar - it's just perfect engineering!

Looking down Curetes Way, Ephesus' most important street, back at the Library of Celsus.

Ruins along Curetes Way.

Jess walking along Curetes Way.

Fancy columns.

I believe this is the Pollio Fountain, but maybe it's just a building beside the Pollio Fountain...

We walked up to the Magnesia Gate at the other end of Ephesus, past the Upper Agora, and came across this cat in the shade! 

Circling back - we had to back to the same gate where we started to catch a ride back to Selçuk - the Odeon, which seats 5000 people, and which was used for municipal meetings. This is gold for a poli sci kid like me!

When we were done in Ephesus, we headed back to Selçuk, and immediately transferred to a bus to İzmir - by evening, we were in the coastal city - but that's for next blog post.

Luckily we were in Selçuk long enough to see this cutie.

Real Time Update: I'm posting this from Kazbegi (also known as Stepantsminda), up the Georgian Military Highway from Tbilisi, where we just stayed for a couple nights. It's in the Greater Caucasus mountains, just 15kim short of the Russian border. We just arrived this afternoon, and tomorrow will be a day of hiking here before heading back to the capital and then, by the end of the week, crossing into Armenia!